How to format your references using the Microbiology Spectrum citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Microbiology Spectrum. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Hunten DM. 2004. Atmospheric science. An iron deficiency in polar mesospheric clouds. Science 304:395–396.

A journal article with 2 authors

Stixrude L, Peacor DR. 2002. First-principles study of illite-smectite and implications for clay mineral systems. Nature 420:165–168.

A journal article with 3 authors

Allison KR, Brynildsen MP, Collins JJ. 2011. Metabolite-enabled eradication of bacterial persisters by aminoglycosides. Nature 473:216–220.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Wallace BD, Wang H, Lane KT, Scott JE, Orans J, Koo JS, Venkatesh M, Jobin C, Yeh L-A, Mani S, Redinbo MR. 2010. Alleviating cancer drug toxicity by inhibiting a bacterial enzyme. Science 330:831–835.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Schiek B, Rolfes I, Siweris H-J. 2005. Noise in High-Frequency Circuits and Oscillators. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

2015. Cancer Stem Cells: Emerging Concepts and Future Perspectives in Translational Oncology1st ed. 2015. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Azkarate A, Escribano-Ruiz S, Sánchez-Pinto I, Benedet V. 2016. Thoughts on Early Spanish Colonialism Through Two American Case Studies: Basque Fisheries (Canada) and Sancti Spiritus Settlement (Argentina), p. 93–115. In Montón-Subías, S, Cruz Berrocal, M, Ruiz Martínez, A (eds.), Archaeologies of Early Modern Spanish Colonialism. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Microbiology Spectrum.

Blog post

Hale T. 2015. NASA Is Hiring Astronauts, And You Could Apply. IFLScience. IFLScience. Retrieved 30 October 2018.

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office. 2007. Aviation Security: Risk, Experience, and Customer Concerns Drive Changes to Airline Passenger Screening Procedures, but Evaluation and Documentation of Proposed Changes Could Be Improved. GAO-07-634. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Meeks JD. 2009. From the belly of the HUAC: The HUAC investigations of Hollywood, 1947–1952. Doctoral dissertation. University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Weiser B, Schwirtz M. 2017. Prison Guards Will Not Be Charged in an Inmate’s Death in 2015, Prosecutors Say. New York Times.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (1).
This sentence cites two references (1, 2).
This sentence cites four references (1–4).

About the journal

Full journal title	Microbiology Spectrum
Abbreviation	Microbiol. Spectr.
ISSN (online)	2165-0497
Scope	Cell Biology Genetics Physiology Ecology General Immunology and Microbiology Infectious Diseases Microbiology (medical)